Rendered into English by Edward Fitzgerald, with illustrations by Edmund Dulac. 4to, dark red cloth, gilt extra, 20 coloured plates. The illustrations are tipped-in on to Japanese vellum sheets with printed borders; the first issue of Dulac's edition. London: First Edition. Hodder & Stoughton, 1913

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation from Farsi to English of a selection of quatrains (rub??iy?t) attributed to Omar Khayyam (1048-1131), dubbed "the Astronomer-Poet of Persia".

FitzGerald's work at first was unsuccessful commercially. But it was popularised from 1861 onward by Whitley Stokes, and the work came to be greatly admired by the Pre-Raphaelites in England. In 1872 FitzGerald had a third edition printed, which increased interest in the work in the United States of America. By the 1880s, the book was extremely well known throughout the English-speaking world, to the extent that numerous "Omar Khayyam Clubs" were formed and there was a "fin de siècle cult of the Rubaiyat".

Edmund Dulac (1882-1953) was one of the great figures from the Golden Age of Illustration. Born in Toulouse, France, Dulac was artistically inclined from adolescence. He switched from law to art and moved to London where he was in tremendous demand from publishers.

Dulac's most famous works of art include beautiful illustrations for books like the Arabian Nights, Sleeping Beauty, Stories from Hans Christian Andersen and the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.

The so-called Golden Age of Illustration spanned over four decades from the 1880s into the 1920s, and saw memorable artistic works in books and magazines from the likes of Dulac, Arthur Rackham, Kay Nielsen, N.C. Wyeth and others. After World War I ended, demand for illustrated deluxe books tailed off and Dulac moved into other areas of design. He died in 1953 of a heart attack while illustrating John Milton's Comus. He was 70 years old.

CONDITION:

Hardcover. Condition: Used: Very Good. Hardback book